Culture Secretary Maria Miller today denied using her position overseeing the Leveson reforms of the press to warn off a newspaper that was investigating her expenses.

In an interview with the Evening Standard she said she complained because her disabled father was “doorstepped” by a journalist, but denied that she linked her complaint to the setting up of a new independent press regulator.

“This has nothing to do with the Leveson inquiry,” she said. “My concern is that any investigation is done in accordance with the rules, the editor’s code.

“What I did was to contact the editor of the Telegraph directly to express my concern at the way his investigation was being undertaken.”

Her denial may do little to put out a bushfire that has spread to 10 Downing Street. The Daily Telegraph reported that Mrs Miller’s special adviser, Joanna Hindley, “threatened” it by flagging up the Culture Secretary’s role in implementing new reporting rules and that the Prime Minister’s communications chief Craig Oliver “warned off” its editor by again raising her Leveson role.

Asked if the actions of her special adviser — who reportedly said “I am just going to flag up that connection for you to think about” — gave a threatening impression, Mrs Miller said the point was that the paper’s “approach was not correct”.

“The journalist hadn’t contacted my office first. She had doorstepped a member of my family, a person who is not in public life, a person ill equipped to deal with national media enquiries on my behalf,” she said.

We turned to her expenses. At issue are claims totalling £90,718 between 2005 and 2009 for a property in Wimbledon where her parents also lived — an arrangement that some say broke parliamentary rules.

“Those expenses have been audited twice independently so I think everything’s in order,” said Mrs Miller.

Who were these independent auditors? One, she said, was Sir Thomas Legg, the former civil servant who ordered 389 MPs to repay sums wrongly claimed in 2009.

Did Sir Thomas know her parents lived there? Mrs Miller was unclear. “I obviously spoke to the Fees Office about my claims and they were happy that everything was in order,” she said.

And who was the second “independent auditor”? The Culture Secretary replied that it was the Conservative Party which “audited all Conservative MPs’ expenses”. Her definition of independent may raise some eyebrows as the Tory panel was headed by the then Chief Whip and David Cameron’s chief of staff.

I suggested that some members of the public might simply think it doesn’t smell right that Mrs Miller, who treats the Wimbledon property as her family home, listed it as a second home for expenses purposes, and a rented house in Basingstoke as her main home.

“MPs live in two places and that’s what the rules reflected,” she responded. “And as I said, my expenses have been looked at in detail twice by two separate organisations and have been found to be entirely in order.”

But whether inside the rules or not, might it not look to outsiders like a dodge to claim expenses on the privately owned property?

“No,” she insisted. “As I said, all of my expenses have been audited in full and have been found to be entirely consistent with the rules.”

Could not the same have been said by ex-MP Denis MacShane and others who quit after expenses anomalies that were missed by Legg? “I think they were found to have not adhered to the rules,” argued Mrs Miller. “That’s why they are no longer MPs.”

So why, then, did she suddenly stop claiming on the Wimbledon home in 2009 — just as the expenses scandal erupted. “Because I think there was a lot of concern about the rules and, er, a lot of concern about, you know, the whole issue, and it’s something I felt that I didn’t want to be, sort of, mixed up in, the fact that I ...” Mrs Miller finally stopped trying to explain herself, and simply said: “I just made that decision.”

Did she feel perhaps her expenses did not look right? “No.”So why stop claiming? “I’ve just said.”

More allegations have since been made by the Telegraph. Today it suggested a potential conflict of interest existed because her Basingstoke landlord was Tory donor and property developer, Nigel McNair-Scott,

Mrs Miller’s spokesman said she “paid market rates” for the property like any tenant.

The expenses firestorm has even overshadowed the other big controversy that Mrs Miller starred in this week, when she unveiled in the Commons details of how gay marriages are to be brought in.

The big surprise was that it will be illegal for the Church of England to conduct same-sex weddings, though other religious organisations can opt in. But Mrs Miller revealed that the Government would consider a new law in future if one day the CofE decided to back gay weddings.

“The important thing here is that if the Church of England at any time wanted to change their position ... then they would be able to ask for us to consider changing primary legislation. This doesn’t prohibit them from doing that.”

Today marks her 100th day as Culture Secretary, during which she has dealt with the Jimmy Savile crisis at the BBC and come under attack at the Evening Standard Theatre Awards over arts cuts.

“I last went to the theatre about a week ago, to the Donmar Trafalgar Studio, to see The Promise,” she said. “It was brilliant.”

Rebuffing those who question her dedication to the arts, she went on: “I make no bones about it, I didn’t study theatre at university, I go to the theatre because I really enjoy it as a great entertainment. I think that’s what theatre should be — great entertainment.” She refused to be drawn into the controversy over pay-offs at the BBC, including the £450,000 goodbye for former director-general George Entwistle: “My job is not to hold them to account on the day to day running of the BBC.”

Mrs Miller, who is also Minister for Equalities and Women, said she had been “disappointed” when the Church of England voted against women bishops but said it was up to the Church. “I’m sure they will be listening hard to the debate that is continuing,” she added.